Molecules Of Emotion: The Science Behind Mind-Body Medicine

Rating:
Summary: Thought provoking, but only up to a point
Review: "Molecules of Emotion" was certainly not what I expected from the jacket blurbs. Yes, there is some discussion of the scientific discoveries regarding emotion, but only in the first half of the book, and even there, it's a small minority of the content, couched in a personal narrative more centered on Candace Pert's viewpoint of her own career.

Yes, the saddening politics of paper publication, awards selection and grant approval in the world of government- and industry-funded biological research is quite an interesting read for an outsider. It even got my blood boiling to think of the promising therapies that are possibly being ignored due to their lack of profit potential (though this wasn't a new idea to me). It's too bad this ends up being the high point of the book.

From the very beginning, Pert's own ego comes to the fore in places in a way that detracts from the information that I (and presumably some others) bought the book for in the first place. There is something about the way she describes her personal experiences (more extensively and less modestly than might have seemed appropriate for a presentation of important scientific information) that made me wonder how much differently other people must perceive her than she perceives herself (even before she admits as much later on).

Unfortunately, this is not the worst of it. The early content is clearly scientifically validated, and describes in some detail (just enough for plausibility) the experiments that were conducted and the meaning of the results. But by the second half of the book, she seems to have thrown scientific inquiry to the wind in favor of unfounded speculation, including extensive quotations of flighty lunchtime conversations she's had with psychics and others, with no foundation or evidence to back up any of the wild ideas that spring forth. It degenerates into such drivel that I stopped reading entirely 50 pages from the end (and I rarely fail to slog through the last pages of even the dreariest tome).

Not that it isn't a bit fascinating what this woman believes (some of which is entirely plausible, insightful, and well founded, while some is just the opposite, with seemingly little discrimination between the two extremes), but I didn't have much interest in paying money and spending time on someone's not-very-interesting life story or wild speculations.

In sum, the first half of the book is reasonably interesting, both in terms of the science and the politics of science. The second half is only interesting as a personality study of a scientest appearantly so frustrated with the politics of science that she to a large extent rejected science itself, no longer discriminating between theories backed by experiment or other evidence and those that are not.

Fans of alternative healing, particularly those just savvy enough to be impressed by passing references to terms like "quantum mechanics" and "information theory" (in close association with "chakra" and "subtle energy", a supposed force beyond those of electicity, gravity, etc. invented to explain the power of love) but not sophisticated enough to actually understand what they really mean, will eat up the second half of this book, as will insecure psychologists threatened by successful drug treatmenets for depression.

Don't get me wrong: I have nothing against self-help books, spiritual healing or holistic approaches to a healthy body and mind. (And some of Pert's later musings are perfectly valid wise words for how to live a good and happy life.) But this book ends up in a VERY different place from where the jacket summary and testimonials would suggest.

Rating:
Summary: Thought provoking, but only up to a point
Review: "Molecules of Emotion" was certainly not what I expected from the jacket blurbs. Yes, there is some discussion of the scientific discoveries regarding emotion, but only in the first half of the book, and even there, it's a small minority of the content, couched in a personal narrative more centered on Candace Pert's viewpoint of her own career.

Yes, the saddening politics of paper publication, awards selection and grant approval in the world of government- and industry-funded biological research is quite an interesting read for an outsider. It even got my blood boiling to think of the promising therapies that are possibly being ignored due to their lack of profit potential (though this wasn't a new idea to me). It's too bad this ends up being the high point of the book.

From the very beginning, Pert's own ego comes to the fore in places in a way that detracts from the information that I (and presumably some others) bought the book for in the first place. There is something about the way she describes her personal experiences (more extensively and less modestly than might have seemed appropriate for a presentation of important scientific information) that made me wonder how much differently other people must perceive her than she perceives herself (even before she admits as much later on).

Unfortunately, this is not the worst of it. The early content is clearly scientifically validated, and describes in some detail (just enough for plausibility) the experiments that were conducted and the meaning of the results. But by the second half of the book, she seems to have thrown scientific inquiry to the wind in favor of unfounded speculation, including extensive quotations of flighty lunchtime conversations she's had with psychics and others, with no foundation or evidence to back up any of the wild ideas that spring forth. It degenerates into such drivel that I stopped reading entirely 50 pages from the end (and I rarely fail to slog through the last pages of even the dreariest tome).

Not that it isn't a bit fascinating what this woman believes (some of which is entirely plausible, insightful, and well founded, while some is just the opposite, with seemingly little discrimination between the two extremes), but I didn't have much interest in paying money and spending time on someone's not-very-interesting life story or wild speculations.

In sum, the first half of the book is reasonably interesting, both in terms of the science and the politics of science. The second half is only interesting as a personality study of a scientest appearantly so frustrated with the politics of science that she to a large extent rejected science itself, no longer discriminating between theories backed by experiment or other evidence and those that are not.

Fans of alternative healing, particularly those just savvy enough to be impressed by passing references to terms like "quantum mechanics" and "information theory" (in close association with "chakra" and "subtle energy", a supposed force beyond those of electicity, gravity, etc. invented to explain the power of love) but not sophisticated enough to actually understand what they really mean, will eat up the second half of this book, as will insecure psychologists threatened by successful drug treatmenets for depression.

Don't get me wrong: I have nothing against self-help books, spiritual healing or holistic approaches to a healthy body and mind. (And some of Pert's later musings are perfectly valid wise words for how to live a good and happy life.) But this book ends up in a VERY different place from where the jacket summary and testimonials would suggest.

Rating:
Summary: Neuropeptides and the Evolving Bodymind
Review: A curious mix of the personal and academic travails of an acclaimed neuroscientist-the woman who codiscovered the endorphin receptor-and her semi-ostracization into a new age world where heterodox approaches to healing are overly welcomed, rather than overly criticized, Candace Perts Molecules of Emotion: The Science Behind Mind-Body Medicine is an important, if provisional, scientific document chronicling the beginnings of what she calls "the new paradigm." The New Paradigm is Pert's term for a verifiable, hard science field beyond political terms such as "alternative," "complementary," or even "integrative" medicine-a field devoted to human health and wellness that recognizes the deep, peptidally mediated connections between the gastrointestinal, cranial-neural, immunological, and endocrine systems. As Pert emphasizes, the mind is not the brain although the forebrain (the neocortex) is, along with the gut and the heart, one of its crucial nodes. The would-be "magic bullet" approach of institutionalized and governmentally funded western medicine ignores the complexity and mutliple feedback systems of the human organism as a peptidally connected unified field. Endorphins, released by the pituitary gland beneath the brain's limbic system, have effects throughout the body and are found not only in other mammals but in microbes such as Tetrahymena. (The extent to which peptide-producing microbes affect human moods remains an unexplored area.) They cause (and/or are the result of) pleasure, measurably increasing in orgasm and exercise; they are also involved in learning (and probably laughter). But they are only one of hundreds of neurally active peptides dovetailing together to establish mood and filter perception within the human organism. There are seratonin receptors in the gut, and antidepressants active in the brain also have been shown to increase gastrointestinal disorders. Placebo anaesthetics have measurably real chemical effects on pain threshold: psychosomatic may be a matter of suggestion, but it is hardly "all in the mind." Pert, fighting an uphill battle against an entrenched institutionalized morass, has (not without strong emotional involvement on her part) proved the dichotomous narrowness of the mind-versus-body approach endemic to modern, male-dominated western medicine. Ironically, males may be more prone to such over-dichotomization, including that of the mental and the physical, due to their smaller corpus callossums, the fibrous neural mass connecting the brains two hemispheres. We are more like segmented worms than ensouled machines or minds inside the vats of bodies. We have gut feelings and even during adulthood cells in the bone marrow migrate through the body along peptide gradients to form neurons, literally making up one's mind. I learned this in a recent interview with Pert in her office at Georgetown Medical Center. In it-interrupted for phone calls preparing for further work on the peptide-based AIDs drugs Pert has been championing for fifteen years, but is only recently receiving attention-she also told me that she had met many of the top brass in the alternative healing movement. (Photos of her with the pope, and of her with the Dalai Lama adorn her office wall.) As the scientific evidence mounts for the molecular basis of moods in receptor sites finely modulated by roving peptides, the scientific importance of this popular document increases. Virtually every street drug known works by acting on a correlated endogenous receptor. Pert's book, although certainly flawed as literature, stands as a founding document of medicine's "new paradigm"-the fascinating interconnections of a single, peptidergically mediated body-mind.

Rating:
Summary: Autobiography of a Scientist
Review: After reading about Candace Pert's discoveries in numerous magazine articles, I decided to read her book to learn more. What I learned about was Candace Pert. The book contains information about the biology of emotions, but it is embedded in a narrative of Dr. Pert's life as a scientist. Though the story is an interesting one, it was a disappointment for someone looking for a layperson's introduction to the molecules of emotions.

Rating:
Summary: Science made easy!
Review: An amazing book that covers both the scientific facts and it's real life applications in parallel. Dr. Pert has an amazing way of explaining deep scientific facts about the chemical and electrical information exchange that goes into our bodies. What makes the theory easier to grasp is that she takes the reader into a journey into what goes on in her mind and body as she evolve emotionally, academically and socially. She also concludes the book with specific program that helps in emotional, mental and health well being. The only problem in this book is that by the last chapter, the writer starts mixing scientifically proven facts with her own experiences and feelings - especially when discussing the "New Age" medicine. All in all it's an excellent book to understand how our brain works, how our body is influenced by our mind and vis versa.

Rating:
Summary: "Molecules of emotion" delivers the TRUTH about health
Review: Candace Pert is a brave, intuitive scientist who is not afraid to move out of the reductionist and confined thinking of old science and move towards the well lit truth of our brains not being housed in our skulls and our health not being held in the hands of our physicians or entirely within our flesh or bone.
Open minded scientists, lay people and/or anyone wanting to learn more about the truth behind living in a healthy, holistic manner that benefits not only your emotions, your mind but your BODY/MIND. Pert talks of our unconcious being our body and really our body isnt what you see when you look in the mirror, we are so much more than this. We are made up of energetic information that has been proven by Pert and others like her in labs all over America and else where, where the open minded are finding the truth is bringing them closer to a field of consciousness and creator. I have understood and used the principles of energetic medicine within my lfe and the lives of my family for years. Think well, be well. I HIGHLY recommend this ground breaking book by visionary and one of the fore runners of true medicine that puts the power squarely back in our own hands, where it always was.

Rating:
Summary: A very worthy discussion of mind-body communication!
Review: Dr. Perts book is worth reading by any one interested in understanding the interrelationship between our body, mind, emotions and health. Much better than the many dogmatic eastern books so lacking in western-scientific thought, Dr. Pert makes the science easily understandable by laypersons. Those who criticize her "whining" against her former mentors obviously didn't finish the book, or they would have seen her own admission for her need to release the unhealthy emotions she harbored for being slighted by her male colleagues who took the credit for her valuable discovery. It's seems her detractors are the ones who are whining too much! Thought her writing is perhaps shaky at first (she lacks the eloquence of say, E.O. Wilson), she finds her stride midway through, presenting an intriguing account of the science behind the vital two-way communication continuously going on within us. While her descent into religion and spirituality was disappointing (she should have stuck with emotions - which are enough to convey her point), the book still reflects a solid effort.

Rating:
Summary: What a crock
Review: I gave up after 100 pages of self-aggrandizing drivel. I kept trudging through the thing hoping that it would come around and get to the meat of the subject, but alas, I'm simply too frustrated to keep going.

The title made me think that I'd be reading about molecular structures that are responsible for human emotions, and may be tied to awareness.

Instead, the book is a poorly-written autobiography. It could easily be edited down to about 1/3 its size. Ideally, a real writer would have been employed to interview Pert and give us a well-written report.

Pert goes on for pages and pages about what a swell and clever female scientist she is in a world of men who don't respect her because she's a woman, but then she wins them over because she is, after all, a strong, smart woman. Oh, did I mention that she's a woman?

Pert also makes a point of describing the men around her in romantic or sexual terms - they're erotic, mysterious, handsome, etc. It's hard to berate men for their sexism when you're a sexist yourself. Can you imagine the outcry if a male scientist described a co-worker as sexy or erotic?

Along with being a clever woman scientist, Pert is also a woman writer who loves to use exclamation marks! For no reason whatsoever! Wow! That really makes otherwise uninteresting sentences seem really interesting!

Save yourself and don't bother with this book. If you must read it, get it from the library or look for it in the nearest dumpster.



Rating:
Summary: Pleasant reading experience
Review: I have always liked biology and I have always been a believer in a the mind/body theory, my psychology teacher recommended this book and I see why it gives you wit detail the explanation and even some one with some knowledge of terminology in biology can understand it, and her personal story was a delightful dessert for a fascinating well written scientific book, I have read several other books in this subject and this is one of my favorites.

Rating:
Summary: Molecules of ego
Review: Now don't get me wrong, this is a good book. Pert provides a (Western) scientific perspective on the mind/body question, and provides a lot of food for thought. The idea that our bodies and minds are bound together as one, through a process of transmission and reception of molecules throughout the body (not just in the brain), opens up endless possibilities for keeping ourselves well and healing when that is required. You should read it just to get the layperson's understanding of how this is so. On the other hand, be prepared for another story, the intellectual/emotional biography of Pert. While it makes sense (in keeping with the holistic perspective) to meld the personal and the professional, I'd estimate the ratio as 3 personal to 1 professional, where I would have preferred the opposite. Whether she is displaying hard work, intelligence, naivete or her appreciation of her co-workers' physical attributes, the book seems to be very much about her. If you want the ideas without the ego, read something else on this topic.